It's all the things, half the time, rather than half the things all the time

Blood Pressure

Walking through the store, my son started saying, Dad, check your blood, check your blood and I had no idea what he was talking about. Looking around, I spotted the blood pressure testing machine and sat down, more for his entertainment than my own curiosity, and pressed the button.

The machine went through it’s paces, and came up with numbers I’d never seen before. Usually I ride the “close to the borderline” level. and have been there most of my life. This time, I’m looking at 146/94. If you’re not familiar, this is in the, you’d better start getting worried range. Of course, upon standing up, I suddenly felt a tightening in my chest, and had a dizzy spell. Walking around the store, talking with my son, trying not to look at panicked as I felt, and swearing that I would NOT have a heart attack in the store, I started thinking about just what was going on here.

First, could be the machine. I’ve seen machines do much stranger things than give slightly off blood pressure readings. My computer alone does all manner of strange things I don’t ask it to do.

Second, this could just be a rough moment and the next time I check, it will be fine.

Third, my blood pressure is way up there, likely caused by all the things I have to worry about, and now, I have a new things to worry about. Great.

I went home and dug out my Prevention Home BP monitor, which I picked up from Woot.com for some price that seemed like a bargain at the time, and pressed the button. After a somewhat frantic search for replacement batteries, I found an AC adapter that would likely work, and plugged the thing in.

The home monitor showed the same basic numbers as the store machine, bad. Well stress, and not enough sleep, that’s the reason. I figured I’d get some sleep, maybe cut back on the wine and caffeine and all would be better.

Two days later, at work, I’m still feeling that tightening in my chest. I’m not pretty unhappy with the whole situation, and decide to give the doctor a ring. Since I’m taking a trip next week, it would be good to get checked out before going. The receptionist said they could see me a week from Friday, which is 3 days after I leave. More to worry about. Not wanting to go into health care reform, I think if emergency rooms had a policy of a week and a half before you could get in, we’d have a lot fewer patients out there that would need medical attention. Sort of a modern day evolution.

So if I die at the airport, or have some huge heart attack, it can’t be said that I didn’t at least TRY to go to the doctor.

So, I’m not sure, besides more sleep and exercise, and less salt, wine, coffee, energy drinks, fat, calories, and anything else that I may have been enjoying, what I should be doing.